What do I do now?

OK, so if there’s such a good reason (see last post “Help! I didn’t do it.”) . . . what is it?

I have certainly had the experience of banging my head against the wall, wanting to do my goal and spending way more time and effort on banging and wanting than it would have taken to just do it.  Lists are one of my favorite delay tactics.

I think my reasons come into two categories: environmental and belief/identity.  Environmental means that there actually is a reality based reason why I didn’t do it, or possibly there is something wrong with the choice – like when I wanted to go on this huge cleanse and I was an extreme junk food and caffeine addict.  I could have done the cleanse, but it would have thrown my body for a loop, and I would not have been very functional at a period of time when I needed to focus and get things done.  I also would not have learned how to manage my feelings in a day by day sort of way – gradual changes proved much more effective for me. 

Sometimes we intuitively know something is environmentally wrong but it takes awhile to understand it logically.  For example, I thought I wanted to take a class and kept hesitating, losing the paperwork, forgetting to call . . . it was frustrating because I thought it would help my business, so completion was a goal; then later I found out it was a recruitment venue for a well known cult.

Those intuitive balk instances are sometimes hard to separate from the belief/identity cases.  In the latter case there is a conflicting belief that’s getting in the way.  For example take someone who was criticized a lot as a child.  They may have an underlying organizing belief of “I am worthless”.  So if they start actively executing their priority actions and achieving their success goals, they are challenging that belief and might end up blowing everything up; just so that they can prove themselves right.  That’s where NLP coaching and change-work comes in.  NLP provides elegant processes to identify those deeply held, but often hidden, beliefs and shift them. (don’t know about NLP? check out the NLP Marin website on the blog roll)

Here are some questions to help you identify whether there are environmental or belief/identity reasons why your action execution priorities keep slipping out of reach:

• Do you really want to do this? (Is it in line with your Vision and Mission – don’t have one? Check out our free business plan template on the blogroll link for Artemis Consulting Partners)
• Is the goal framed in a do-able chunk size?  (I’m going to call all 350 people on my database and ask for referrals would not be a do-able chunk size for me.  I’d get overwhelmed and do nothing.  I’m going to call these seven people this week, or set 15min/day aside for outbound phone calls would work for me.)
•  Is there an easier way?  Or better yet, can you pay someone else to do it better/faster?
• How many items are on your “to-do” list.  Keep it to 3-5 open items at any time.
• Has an item been there so long that it is no longer achievable?  For example: I’m going to write 100 pages by July 30^th – goal set in January but it’s now July 20^th and you’ve written the title page.  Forget it.  Update your action execution priorities regularly to reflect what’s actually happening.

 If your action item passes all the environmental tests and it’s still not happening, it might be time to work with a coach and find out what belief and or identity issues might be going on underneath the surface of things.  Sometimes it helps to have someone look at it with you from the outside.